Letter to Pyotr Lavrov, April 17, 1877

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 17 April 1877


First published, in Russian, in Letopisi marksizma, Book V, Moscow-Leningrad, 1928
Printed according to the original
Translated from the French
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 45


MARX TO PYOTR LAVROV

IN LONDON

[London,] 17 April 1877 My dear Friend,

The agent has just handed me the fee of £2.10/- due to you from Vanity Fair; I am sending it by the enclosed POST-OFFICE order.

I am truly astonished by your letter. It was at my request that you took the trouble to write—and promptly at that—not only the article published, but also the manuscript for the Member of Parliament,[1] and yet you feel you are under an obligation to me! On the contrary, I am the one under an obligation.

We can discuss the Pio affair[2] when you keep your promise and come and see me.

Yours ever,

Karl Marx

If they ask at the POST OFFICE for the name of the 'SENDER', you should give my name and address.

  1. ↑ At Marx's request, Pyotr Lavrov compiled a résumé of judicial and police persecution in Russia, which Marx passed on to the Irish M. P. Keyes O'Clery. The latter used the information in his speeches delivered in the House of Commons on 3 and 14 May 1877 (see MEGA, Erste Abteilung, Band 25, S. 462). Pyotr Lavrov also wrote an article in French entitled 'La justice en Russie', which Marx helped to get printed in the British weekly Vanity Fair on 14 April 1877.
  2. ↑ Having squandered the money collected for party purposes, Louis Pio and Paul Geleff, leaders of the Danish Social-Democratic Party, secretly left Denmark on 23 March 1877 and settled in the USA (see present edition, Vol. 24, p. 219).